Mrs. C., was it mice? Did voles do it?

One winter, on my California mountain, voles got into my garden shed and ate darned near everything and shredded everything made of paper, including pots. It was an awful mess. Snakes are the cure (the nice kind of course).

Coyotes, hawks, eagles, and cats help keep the rodent population down. If ground squirrels burrow in, they multiply like crazy and can take down the foundation of a house. The only cure I've found for ground squirrels are coyotes, and sorry folks, but if they get too bad, you have to shoot them.

I had one snake (I think it was one) who loved to climb up to the balcony on my wisteria. I'd walk by and he'd raise himself up and hiss at me. Darn thing was five feet long and scared me every time. But he was after voles, not me. In the summer, snakes were in the drip dishes of my pots and all over the garden and if it got to dry, they found their way inside.

I was working in the kitchen and had left the door open. At lightening speed a snake raced into the house, followed by the cat, followed by the dog. That snake must have thought my legs were tree trunks, cause he came right at me. I shrieked, jumped onto the table and he slithered into a spot in the shadows. I got out the flashlight and could not believe my eyes. That snake had found a hole in the wall left behind after a remodel. Trouble was he'd recently eaten, and half of him was too fat for that hole. That snake was stuck. He could not back up and he could not go forward. I tried to pull him out, but could not bring myself to pull too hard.

I felt the need for support and googled. Google was stumped. I went on a message board and got advice like call, here snakey, snakey, snakey. I waited for my daughter. We tried, but we could not pull him out. We could not get to that hole from the kitchen and the other side of that wall was 20 feet above the stairwell. That poor snake died in that hole (and stank for weeks). Nonetheless, I recommend snakes for rodent control.